The tide has turned with a sharp but silent menace against Julia Gillard.

The best sign that her leadership is in deep trouble before Parliament meets next week is that her colleagues have spent much of recent days not propping her up but working to shape the debate on who should replace her. The previous arguments against leadership change – that Labor simply couldn’t afford to do so again – are no longer mentioned.

The hostility in the caucus towards the most conspicuous alternative, Kevin Rudd, is still intense.

What is new is that those who would seek to thwart him are no longer arguing the merits of keeping Gillard, but of alternative candidates, and the various dangers of a Rudd return to the leadership.

These include people who were instrumental in, or welcomed, ­Gillard’s ascension to the top job.

“I don’t see how the current situation of Julia’s leadership can go beyond Easter,” says one MP. If he is right, the implications would be ­profound, and run broader than Labor’s fate. A leadership change could mean an early election.

Labor’s carbon tax and the mining tax might not see the light of day.

The change of heart has not been due to the polls.

“It’s true that when you move around the electorate, the question you get is: ‘Why is Julia allowed to lie?’,” another formerly supportive MP says.

“I don’t think she can possibly lead us to the next election. But are we going to cut off her head? It would be better if she could have a dignified exit.” With Labor’s primary vote stubbornly remaining at 30 per cent for months, this MP and many others are not at all that sure where the party should turn.

What has turned many previous supporters of Gillard has been a series of self-made disasters since Parliament rose last year.

The ALP conference, the minis­terial reshuffle, the Wilkie poker machine reform deal, the Australia Day catastrophe. Gillard’s colleagues were first puzzled, then aghast, then angry.

The manoeuvres now are shadow play upon shadow play.

Some MPs believe those hostile to Rudd are trying to flush him out, hoping he will do something stupid, or challenge, in a mistaken belief his numbers are stronger than they are.

They want to see the Rudd camp bring things to a head, and be spectacularly undone.

But that won’t necessarily solve their problem with Gillard.

Equally, some have urged the PM to cauterise the damage at Sunday’s pre-parliamentary caucus meeting, but this will be difficult.

The rot has well and truly set in.

Those who argue against a change to Rudd will often volunteer that Bill Shorten is Labor’s best long-term hope. Implicit in this is that Gillard should be allowed to stay in the job simply to keep the seat warm until he is ready to take over.

The leadership battle remains one primarily between Gillard and Rudd.

But other threads have emerged in the story.

“The debate now is whether you can go back to Kevin and not have a walkout,” a senior figure says, ar­guing a number of MPs would resign from the frontbench, or even resign from Parliament rather than work with the Queenslander again. “You have to understand that moving to Kevin means instantaneous election. The only way Kevin is going to keep people in line is with an election campaign.”

So the threat of an early election is now being waved in front of MPs who have quietly withdrawn from Gillard’s camp but can’t commit themselves to Rudd. An early election would not only crystallise voters’ views about the two sides of politics but put elections for the two houses of Parliament out of kilter, since a half-Senate election can’t be held until late next year.

That means whoever were to win a 2012 House of Representatives election would face the judgment of the people at a Senate poll in 2013, and face a hostile Senate in the meantime.

Shorten, it is argued, is highly implicated in all the ugly machinations of the past 18 months, not just the leadership change to Gillard.

Many in the party believe it was pressure from Shorten for promotion that forced Gillard to disastrously reshuffle her cabinet.

Swan, it is argued, is too heavily wrapped up with Gillard to be a ­viable candidate, even if he has the advantage of being a Queenslander.

Crean’s public intervention this week – in which he appeared to back the Prime Minister by telling Rudd he would never return to the prime ministership – was perhaps the classic example of the wheels within wheels manoeuvring going on within the government.

His move was also seen to be about putting himself forward as a candidate, though one with few supporters.

Finally there is Stephen Smith, presentable, conservative, with known values and capability. He also hasn’t made any mistakes.

Some in the party believe Smith is the only figure in the field who will ultimately give Labor a chance to remake itself.

The Australian Financial Review

BY Laura Tingle

Laura Tingle, The Australian Financial Review's
political editor, has worked in the parliamentary press gallery in
Canberra for more than 25 years. Laura has won two Walkley awards and
the Paul Lyneham Award for Excellence in Press Gallery Journalism and
has also been highly commended by the Walkley judges for
investigative reporting.

BY Laura Tingle

Laura Tingle, The Australian Financial Review's
political editor, has worked in the parliamentary press gallery in
Canberra for more than 25 years. Laura has won two Walkley awards and
the Paul Lyneham Award for Excellence in Press Gallery Journalism and
has also been highly commended by the Walkley judges for
investigative reporting.